IDAHO: Change forced annexations

Idaho, Tennessee and Indiana are the last three states that allow forced annexations. Idaho’s 50-222 statute has three ways of annexation:

(1) Property owners can volunteer their property to be annexed, (2) if 100 or more parcels are being annexed by a city the property owners get a chance to vote yes or no on the annexations, or (3) if 99 or fewer parcels are being annexed, the city will annex the properties and then the property owners, if not wishing to be annexed, have to hire an attorney and object to the annexation if they are unable to go through the process on their own.

I have a draft (DRMPN042) that I will be presenting before the Idaho House and Senate committees to add a new section 50-221A to Statute 50-222 that would have the cities with less than 8,000 population that are trying to annex 99 or fewer private properties to make it mandatory that if 25 percent or more of the property owners do not want to be annexed, it would allow them a chance to vote YES or NO on the annexation.

There are 200 cities in Idaho; 177 cities have less than 8,000 population, totaling 200,000 people. My draft would help the people who choose to live in the smaller rural counties and not in the cities.

Please contact your legislators if you would like to see this draft converted into a bill and voted on in the Idaho Legislature.

KEN HARVEY

Orofino